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Episode 696: Listener Emails: The Hacking, Hanley, and Position Player Pitching Edition
Date June 18, 2015 Summary Ben and Sam banter about position players pitching and answer emails about the Cardinals-Astros hacking scandal, Hanley Ramirez, defensive positioning, and more. Topics * Alternative hacking strategies and punishments * Morality in baseball cheating * Pitcher best and worst career starts * Hanley Ramirez's lower WAR * Shifting fielders at the last second Intro Thrice, "Unquestioned Answers" Banter * The Sonoma Stompers are 11-1. * There have been 11 position player pitching appearances this season, including six during the last week. Email Questions * Matt: "The focus of the best hack in baseball has been the exfiltration of proprietary data. However couldn't a team that successfully hacked another accomplish much more by being destructive? What if they went in and edited all the scouting reports by changing the grades and writeups of all the amateur and pro scouting or manipulated or erased the data in the team's analytics department. Seems that it could result in victim team taking action on bad data if done well enough, or at worst cost them a lot of time and money to recollect the data and redo the scouting." * Robert: "If you had commissioner authority would your punishemnts for a team that hacked another team's record be greatest if they a) downloaded the data and gave it to Deadpsin or b) deleted all the data (in this case does it matter if the team has backups) or c) subtly modified or corrupted the data. For example touching 92 becomes touching 94. OFP 55 becomes OFP 50. Which of these deeds would hurt the team the most?" * Zack: "How long until the Cardinals and Astros are involved in a trade together?" * Aaron: "Is Hanley Ramirez a lot worse or is he getting punshied by WAR for playing a less valuable defensive position? His slash line stats, wRC+, and wOBA are a bit lower than last year but not abysmal. How is that he went from a 3 fWAR player to a negative WAR player? Is it simply because being a bad shortstop is more valuable than being a bad left fielder?" * Dave: "I was thinking about why defensive players and teams give away their defensive positioning and alignment before the pitch. Couldn't they simply shift a few steps or a few leaps (a la Pedroia) during the pitcher's windup? This way they could disguise their alignment until it's too late for the hitter to do anything but focus on the pitch. I am basically thinking of what the Patriots used to do against Drew Bledsoe (moving all their potential rushers around before the snap to disguise their intentions). I wonder if this is an actual rules violation or an unwritten one, it doesn't seem too different from when a second basemen or shortstop sneaks in behind a runner on second on a pickoff attempt. Considering how long many windups are, fielders could move quite a bit. I bet the second baseman could get from the traditional position for a lefty pull hitter to the short right field currently in vogue and the shortstop could make it from pulled over to straight up the middle for example. This would go a long way to prevent any sort of strategic shift beating on behalf of the hitter and perhaps even better really screw with them. On the other hand it seems like a lot of work." Play Index * Max Scherzer had a game score of 100 in his recent start. His lowest game score ever as a starter was 4. * Sam wanted to know which player in MLB history had the biggest spread between their best and worst game. To do this he compared lists of the top and bottom 300 game scores in history. * In 1938 Bob Feller had a game with a -14 game score. His best ever game score was 98. Nate Silver estimates he threw 180 pitches in the game. * David Wells highest game score was 98 and his lowest was -15. * George LeClair had a game score of -56 during a game in 1914. He pitched 8 innings, had 8 walks, gave up 24 hits and 21 runs (20 earned). His best game score was 76. Notes * Jose Oquendo threw 65 pitches in a game in 1988. * Sam thinks the most demoralizing thing a hacking team could do is to delete the data of the team they hack. * Ben thinks the next significant Cardinals/Astros trade will happen before January 2019. Sam says after January 2019. * Omar Infante has an All-Star bonus clause. Links * Effectively Wild Episode 696: Listener Emails: The Hacking, Hanley, and Position Player Pitching Edition Category:Episodes Category:Email Episodes